Conventional fiber optic cables comprise one or more optical fibers to conduct light. Modulation of the light can encode information or signals. Thus, light transmitted across fiber optic cables can communicatively couple electronic, fiber optic and optoelectronic components. The volume of information that can be communicated across fiber optic cables typically far exceeds the volume in a corresponding copper core electrical cable. Examples of data communication over fiber optic cables include the transmission of large quantities of voice information over telephone system fiber optic cables, data transmission over fiber optic internet backbone cables, etc.
Increasingly, fiber optic cables are being employed in more granular applications, such as local area networks employing optical transceivers, corporate intranets deploying optical pathways for high-speed transmission of data on a corporate campus, etc. Standards and guidelines have emerged to help direct the adoption of fiber optic related cabling and components at these more granular levels. As an example of these guidelines, the Telecommunications Industry Association/Electronic Industries Alliance guidelines, ANSI/TIA-568-C.3, outlines three recommended methods (methods A, B and C) for assuring correct transmit-to-receive polarity over serial duplex fiber circuits using ribbon cables and array connectors.
Adoption of particular standards or adherence to guidelines can result in reliance on said standard or guidelines and difficulty in incorporating or adopting elements from other standards or guidelines. As an example, incorporating fiber optic cabling from the aforementioned ANSI/TIA-568-C.3 guidelines includes a suggestion that intermixing cabling components from methods A, B, and/or C may result in incorrect polarity. These types of limitations can impact transitioning a system employing optical components as the system evolves over time.
The deficiencies of conventional fiber optic cabling, systems, and methods described herein are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of current technology, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art, and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein, may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.